Somerset Transparency Project

24/10/2026

🚨 THE ALGORITHM IS SILENCING LOCAL DEMOCRACY — WE NEED YOUR HELP TO SPREAD THE WORD 🚨

If you've noticed that local news outlets are silent on the full impact of council restructuring, or that local community Facebook groups block serious posts in favour of everyday chat and village updates, you aren't imagining it.
The reality is simple: mainstream channels and social media algorithms are not designed to alert you when your local parish council is about to be dissolved.
We are currently the only independent page putting these council documents, planning screening approvals, and financial baselines directly under public scrutiny. But without reach, the administrative machine quiet-titles our local governance without residents ever knowing there was a vote.

WE CANNOT BEAT THE ALGORITHM ALONE — BUT WE CAN BEAT IT TOGETHER
Because community groups filter out political alerts, direct word-of-mouth and manual sharing between neighbours are the ONLY ways to get this information across Somerset before the 16 November consultation deadline.
Here is how you can bypass the blackout in 60 seconds:

1️⃣ SHARE THIS POST directly to your personal timeline so your local friends and neighbours see it.
2️⃣ TAG THREE SOMERSET RESIDENTS in the comments below who care about local identity, green space, and transparent local government.
3️⃣ COPY & SEND THE LINK via WhatsApp, Messenger, or email directly to parish councillors, community leaders, and local group chats.

When administrators rely on public apathy to pass sweeping changes, visibility is our strongest weapon. Don't let silence be taken as consent! ✊

👉 Make sure to submit your formal objection to the Community Governance Review before 16 November:https://somersetcouncil.citizenspace.com/democratic-services/copy-of-community-governance-review-lhe/consultation/intro/

TO: Electoral Services & Governance Committee, Somerset Council
EMAIL: [email protected]
RE: Formal Objections & Statutory Enquiries regarding the Proposed Merger of Huish Episcopi Parish and Langport Parish

I am submitting this formal response to Stage 2 of the Community Governance Review concerning Huish Episcopi and Langport.

OBJECTION TO DISSOLUTION OF LOCAL PARISHES
I strongly OBJECT to the recommendation to dissolve Huish Episcopi Parish Council and Langport Town Council to create a single unwarded parish council. Merging distinct settlements dilutes rural representation, erases unique parish identities, and centralises hyper-local decision-making away from immediate residents.

DEMAND FOR STATUTORY & EVIDENTIAL FOOTING
Before any final decision is enacted, I request that Somerset Council place on the public record:
• The precise primary statutory legislation (Act of Parliament) being relied upon to dissolve historic parish boundaries, beyond non-binding executive guidelines.
• The empirical baseline data and independent impact assessment demonstrating that merging these parishes provides verifiable "Best Value" and genuine community benefit, rather than administrative convenience.
• Full records confirming whether this boundary change is linked to meeting future centralized housing allocations or regional infrastructure targets.
PRESERVATION OF LOCAL DEMOCRATIC MANDATE
A generic 11-member parish council without wards will leave smaller settlements and rural pockets without guaranteed local representatives. Local governance must remain accountable directly to the electors of each distinct area.
Name: [Your Full Name]
Address / Postcode: [Your Somerset Address]
Date: [Today's Date]

Find and participate in activities run by Somerset Council

24/10/2026

🚨 KNOW YOUR ENEMY: HOW THE LOCAL ADMINISTRATIVE MACHINE ERASES DEMOCRACY 🚨

When looking at the relentless wave of council mergers, regional mayoral bids, and local restructuring, it is easy to wonder how all of this is happening at once.

At the Heritage Party Conference, David Kurten mapped out the bigger ideological targets under attack—family, nation, private property, and civic inheritance.

However, as Madeleine Hunt exposes in her analysis, ideology alone doesn't execute council restructuring on the ground. To understand how local control is being stripped away in practice, we have to look directly at the administrative machine operating inside local government.

1. THE UN-ELECTED BUREAUCRACY
While elected council leaders perform political theatre in front of the press, the real driving force remains the Chief Executives, appointed officers, and professional insider networks like SOLACE and the LGA. Operating behind closed doors, they push top-down reorganisation regardless of who wins local elections.

2. CORPORATE CONSULTANTS & LAND PROMOTERS
Millions in public money—including a £20m contract in Somerset alone—are handed to private management consultants who design transition plans and "rationalise" council budgets. Alongside commercial developers, these corporate interests profit directly as public land and civic assets move out of community hands.

3. "CHARITABLE TRUSTS" & CIC SHELLS
When councils prepare to dispose of open space or historic buildings, assets are frequently shifted into "arm's-length" community trusts. As Madeleine's research reveals, these trusts are often run by the very same council officers and councillors sitting on both sides of the table—marking their own homework while bypassing democratic oversight.

4. CENTRAL GOVERNMENT BUZZWORDS
From "Devolution" to "Levelling Up" and "Local Government Reorganisation," Whitehall civil servants invent endless rebranding terms to obscure a simple reality: moving power away from parishes and market towns into distant regional Mayoral authorities.

WHY THIS MATTERS RIGHT NOW

Understanding who is driving this allows us to direct our resistance where it actually counts. Politicians come and go, but the statutory officers, financial baselines, and legal processes remain.

That is why we don't just complain on Facebook—we put Chief Executives, Monitoring Officers, and External Auditors on direct, personal legal notice using the NRCA Preservation Notice.

Don't let the administrative machine quiet-title your local democracy. Have your say before the deadlines, and serve your council today! ✊



For those interested in exploring the broader conference discussions on these topics, check out David Kurten's Leader's Speech at the Heritage Party Conference. This speech outlines the high-level ideological challenges facing local governance and civic rights.

Only the Heritage Party has a full socially conservative manifesto ...

24/10/2026

🚨 IS SOMERSET TURNING INTO A DISTRICT OF "THE CAPITOL"? 🚨

If you are trying to make sense of all the council mergers and regional mayoral deals in the news, imagine The Hunger Games, but for local government.

In this setup, central government in London acts as "The Capitol"—holding the purse strings and deciding which regions get investment. The catch is that Somerset is being pushed into regional mergers, like the proposed Wessex Partnership with Dorset, Wiltshire, and BCP, all placed under a single regional Mayor.

That turns Somerset into "District 12." Instead of local people making decisions for our villages and market towns, power shifts to bigger, more distant authorities where housing targets and major decisions get pushed through over local objections.

This isn't just happening at the top. It is happening in our villages right now.

Look at the proposal to dissolve both Huish Episcopi Parish Council and Langport Town Council. The plan is to merge them into a single parish with 11 councillors and no local wards. Every time a hyper-local council is swallowed up, another layer of local voice disappears.

When consultations happen, residents deserve to know that their responses actually count—not that the outcome was decided in advance.

HOW TO HAVE YOUR SAY BEFORE 16 NOVEMBER 2026

To make it as easy as possible, the full copy-and-paste objection letter is pinned in the FIRST COMMENT below. You can copy it and send it in less than two minutes.

1. Online Survey:
https://somersetcouncil.citizenspace.com/democratic-services/copy-of-community-governance-review-lhe/consultation/intro
2. Email:
[email protected]
3. Post:
CGR, Electoral Services, Somerset Council, County Hall, The Crescent, Taunton, TA1 4DY

GO A STEP FURTHER?

Also challenge the top-down restructuring at the executive level, you can serve the official NRCA Preservation Notice directly on the council's Chief Executive, Monitoring Officer, CFO, and External Auditors. View the guide and template here: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122160509102968848&id=61579065462196

Should our towns keep their own councils and independent voices, or keep merging into distant authorities? Let us know what you think in the comments, and please share this post so your neighbours can have their say before 16 November!

23/10/2026

🚨 WAKE UP CALL: Right now, only 2 people have submitted formal FOIs to Somerset Council! The council is treating this like quiet background noise because they think the community isn't paying attention. Meanwhile, they've already pushed the developers' initial screening request through behind closed doors for this massive 500MW site. If only 2 of us ask, they can hide behind legal delays. If 50 or 100 of us send the exact same formal request today, it forces their legal team under strict statutory obligations and proves overwhelming public demand for transparency!

👉 Don't leave it to two people to fight for the whole town.

🚨 CAMPAIGN UPDATE: RESPONSES RECEIVED FROM CPRE, WILDLIFE TRUST & SOMERSET COUNCIL ON THE BRIDGWATER DATA CENTRE 🚨

───────────────

📰 LOCAL MEDIA & BBC REPORTING: SCALE & OPPOSITION CONFIRMED

• Massive Footprint & Public Backlash: Official reporting confirms the site covers 129 hectares (larger than 180 football pitches). Meanwhile, a Somerset Live reader poll reveals staggering local opposition—with 95% opposed and only 3% supporting the plans.
• MP Concedes Horsey Lane Flaws: Even local MP Sir Ashley Fox has acknowledged that Horsey Lane suffers from severe flooding and traffic concerns, suggesting it belongs on the Gravity Campus instead.
• Parish Objections Ignored: Somerset Council approved the initial screening request despite formal objections from Bridgwater Without Parish Council warning that unmitigated flood risks and heavy HGV traffic have not been addressed.
• Total Opacity: No detailed masterplan or end-user operator has been publicly published.

───────────────

🟢 1. CPRE SOMERSET BACKS OUR CONCERNS

CPRE Somerset (Campaign to Protect Rural England) has officially confirmed that THEY SHARE OUR CONCERNS regarding the proposed data centre near Horsey and the Somerset Levels:

• Formal Objections: CPRE will submit detailed formal comments/objections to Somerset Council once a full planning application is submitted.
• National Action: CPRE is calling nationally for an immediate pause on unchecked data centre developments until a proper national planning framework is established.
• Sign CPRE's National Petition here: https://takeaction.cpre.org.uk/page/202216/petition/1

───────────────

🟢 2. SOMERSET WILDLIFE TRUST WARNS ON WATER & HABITAT IMPACTS

Somerset Wildlife Trust provided a comprehensive position statement that directly aligns with our campaign points:

• Water Supplies: Deep concern over cooling water extraction placing severe pressure on already stressed water supplies serving the Somerset Levels and Avalon Marshes.
• Protected Habitats: Demands that wetlands, coastal/floodplain grazing marsh, and peatland habitats be strictly protected from development.
• Energy Warning: Explicitly stated that using on-site renewable energy (like solar) CANNOT be used by developers to justify or offset harm to local water resources or habitats.

───────────────

⏳ 3. SOMERSET COUNCIL FOI STATUS: THE STATUTORY CLOCK IS TICKING

Our Freedom of Information (FOI) requests have been OFFICIALLY LOGGED AND ACKNOWLEDGED by Somerset Council:

• Bridgwater AI Data Centre FOI (Ref: 25086329): The Council's statutory deadline to release the paper trail (grid connection data, BESS safety assessments, water stress reports, and developer correspondence) is 12 November 2026.
• Saxonvale FOI (Ref: 24774349): Acknowledged and currently being processed under statutory FOI/EIR regulations.

───────────────

⚖️ THE BIGGER PICTURE: WHY THEY ARE DILUTING PARISH VOICE

This 500MW Data Centre isn't happening in a vacuum. While council officers use fast-track screening opinions to push massive corporate developments past Bridgwater Without Parish Council, they are simultaneously pushing to merge and dilute local parish councils across Somerset (like the proposal to dissolve Huish Episcopi and Langport).

The strategy is clear: centralise land-use decisions at the top with un-elected officers, while erasing independent parish voices at the bottom so communities have less power to resist.

That is why we don't just write to MPs or fill out surveys—we put Chief Executive Duncan Sharkey, Section 151 Officer Lizzie Watkin, and Monitoring Officer Alyn Jones on direct legal notice for personal and audit liability using the NRCA Preservation Notice!

👇 DOWNLOAD & SERVE THE FORMAL NRCA NOTICE TODAY:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122160509102968848&id=61579065462196

───────────────

❓ "WHY DO I NEED TO SEND AN FOI IF SALLY ALREADY SUBMITTED ONE?"

You might be asking: If the council already received an FOI, why is it necessary for me to keep sending the same template?

1. The Request Is Not Answered Yet: Sally received an acknowledgment letter (a ticket in their queue), NOT the actual internal council documents or developer emails.
2. Parish Objections Get Brushed Aside: Standard council consultations and parish objections are easily bypassed or dismissed, as we've already seen with the screening approval.
3. Volume Creates Unignorable Pressure: When dozens or hundreds of residents submit identical formal statutory requests, it demonstrates overwhelming public interest—making it far harder for the council to hide behind exemptions, commercial secrecy, or delayed timelines.
4. Every Request Enforces Accountability: Each logged FOI puts Somerset Council under strict statutory legal obligations regarding Flood Zone 3 decisions, grid capacity, and water extraction.

───────────────

📋 SUBMIT YOUR FOI — COPY & PASTE OUR TEMPLATE!

Don't leave the fighting to just one or two people! Use our ready-to-copy template:

👉 View the Full FOI Post & Copy Template on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/61579065462196/posts/122169790694968848/

👉 Submit Directly to Somerset Council Online:
https://www.somerset.gov.uk/finance-performance-and-legal/information-requests/
✉️ Email: [email protected]

───────────────

✉️ WRITE TO YOUR MP TODAY

Send your concerns and request formal casework representation:

• Bridgwater Constituents: Email Sir Ashley Fox MP at [email protected]
• Other Areas: Find your local MP at https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP or via https://www.theyworkforyou.com

───────────────

✍️ SIGN & SHARE THE PETITION

Over 19,478 supporters have signed on the way to 25,000! Only 5,522 to

• Sign the Petition: https://c.org/Rvy9jWTNzX
• Note: When signing on Change.org, click "No, I'll share instead" to skip payment pop-ups and register your signature for free.

───────────────

☕ SUPPORT THE INDEPENDENT RESEARCH

All campaign research, drafting, and template work is done independently for free. If you'd like to support the work directly:
👉 Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/iatia

Let's keep pushing into the light—silence is taken as consent! 🌾💪

23/10/2026

🚨 WAKE UP SOMERSET: THEY ARE PLANNING TO HAND US OVER TO A REGIONAL MEGA-MAYOR BY 2028!

While council bosses wave a £5m headline figure in our faces to keep us quiet, they have been behind closed doors begging London to lump Somerset in with Dorset, Wiltshire, and Bournemouth under one single, mega-boss. At Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, central government gave them the green light to rush it through.

Forget the fancy council spin—here is what this "Wessex Partnership" deal actually means down on our farms, high streets, and villages:

🚜 YOUR LOCAL VOICE IS WIPED OUT: Instead of a local councillor who lives in your village, decisions on our roads, planning, and fields will be made by an unelected bureaucrat sitting miles away in a regional office.

🏡 PLANNING & LAND CONTROLS HANDED OVER: Giving one regional mayor ultimate control over housing quotas and land use means local objections to mass developments, green energy build-outs, or solar farms will not mean a thing.

💰 WHO PAYS FOR IT? YOU DO: They claim it is "free money," but creating another massive layer of government means more tax out of your pocket to pay for mayor's offices and high-paid consultants.

Worst of all? They are spending OUR council tax money setting this up BEFORE Parliament has even passed the laws to allow it.

Read the full breakdown on how Whitehall disclaimed responsibility and left our council on the hook:

📲 https://hplibrary.substack.com/p/the-mayoral-control-and-the-burnham?r=70ncu1&utm_medium=ios

🛑 STOP JUST COMPLAINING IN THE COMMENTS — PUT THEM ON LEGAL NOTICE

Shouting on Facebook will not stop them selling off our public land and heritage assets. Politicians come and go, but the council's top officers (the Chief Exec, Monitoring Officer, and S151 Finance Chief) are the ones signing off on these spending decisions right now.

Central government already warned them: spending money on reorganisation before the law passes is the council's own risk. That means these officers carry direct liability.

👇 TAKE 2 MINUTES TO SERVE YOUR COUNCIL TODAY:
Download Madeleine’s formal NRCA Preservation Notice and serve it on Somerset’s statutory officers to put their personal and audit liabilities on notice:

📄 Get the Notice & Log Your Receipt:
📲 [https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122160509102968848&id=61579065462196](https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122160509102968848&id=61579065462196)

Once served, drop us your proof or receipt so we can lock it into the public audit log. Stop talking—start serving! 📝⚡

23/10/2026

📢 REAL TALK: Waiting for an election won’t save Somerset’s rivers or stop unevidenced developments.

Everyone is shouting for political reform, asking when the next election is, and waiting for someone else to step in and fix the mess. Here is the brutal truth:

Elections, political manifestos, and changing party badges do not fix statutory planning decisions or hold council executives legally liable today.

When politicians or new candidates get elected, they step into the exact same council structures. They cannot retroactively wipe out unevidenced planning approvals or undo audit liabilities if residents never put those decisions on the official legal record in the first place.

Politicians don't hold personal statutory liability — council Section 151 Officers and external auditors do. This page wasn't built to run a party political talk-shop, collect Facebook likes, or wait years for an election while waste keeps getting dumped into our watercourses. It was built to execute UK statutory audit law under the National Residents for Civic Accountability (NRCA) framework.

If you want real accountability, stop waiting for political saviours and put the suits on the record yourself:

Download the formal NRCA Preservation Notice

https://www.facebook.com/61579065462196/posts/122160509102968848/?

Serve it directly to Somerset Council statutory officers and Grant Thornton auditors.

Comment below to confirm it's served so we can log it on the public audit record. If Somerset prefers passive online complaining and political debate over taking two minutes to serve legal notices, we’ll shut down operations and spend our time elsewhere. The choice is yours. 📝🔥⚡

22/10/2026

🚨 THE AI EXCUSE — AND WHY SOMERSET NEEDS TO ACT NOW

"Residents aren't hallucinating. Their data is."
— Madeleine Hunt

When councils across the UK claim they're being flooded with "AI-generated complaints," what they really mean is: our questions are getting too sharp, too precise, and too hard to dodge.

They expect residents to complain emotionally — about traffic, views, or feelings — so they can reply with a standard, templated apology.

But when you strip away the emotion and present their own missing data, official figures, and statutory notices — the system panics.
"They are projecting their own digital profile onto us. They literally cannot comprehend that ordinary residents, working together, are capable of out-researching them and holding them to account."
And here's the irony: councils are the ones rushing to deploy their own AI just to draft replies to our questions. Meanwhile, they claim we're the problem?

This isn't political, and it isn't party-line.

Public money doesn't have a party colour. Whether it's land sales, local spending, or decisions made behind closed doors — accountability applies no matter who is in charge.

Somerset residents — don't wait for someone else to act.

One formal notice is a request.
Hundreds of notices from hundreds of residents create an undeniable public record.

Other counties are already locking in their evidence. Let's make sure Somerset doesn't get left behind. ✊

📄 SERVE YOUR FORMAL NOTICE
👉 https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122160509102968848&id=61579065462196

📖 READ MADELEINE'S FULL ARTICLE
👉 https://hplibrary.substack.com/p/important-read-the-ai-excuse-we-dont?r=70ncu1&utm_medium=ios

Public Money = Public Evidence.
And the evidence we're presenting? It's all theirs. ✊

22/10/2026

🌊⚖️ Susan Davy’s Exit Is Step One. Step Two Is Enforcing Real Accountability.

After years of public outrage, critical regulatory investigations, and relentless calls from local communities, Susan Davy stepped down as CEO of Pennon Group / South West Water. But for many across the South West, this departure came far too late.

South Devon MP Caroline Voaden didn’t hold back, calling out a ”sorry tenure” where Davy oversaw ”shocking levels of sewage spills” — adding that her promises before parliamentary committees rang ”shockingly hollow” while bill-payers paid the price for company ineptitude.

📊 The facts:
🚨 £24m penalty — 3-year Ofwat investigation into sewage mismanagement
🌊 530,000+ hours of spills — up 83% in one year
🦠 Brixham, May 2024 — Cryptosporidium outbreak: 16,000+ households affected, 140+ ill, 4 hospitalised
💰 £860,000 pay package — awarded shortly after the Brixham crisis
Resignations aren’t enough. We need real accountability.

New leadership is a start — but headlines alone won’t clean our rivers. Complaints and petitions get ignored. That’s why communities are using the NRCA framework to demand action:

📋 1. Public Money = Public Evidence — no commercial secrecy on public health matters
✉️ 2. Target Statutory Officers directly — formal notices, not petitions
🛑 3. Block unevidenced developments — no new builds until sewers are proven capable

📲 Take action today:

Serve your formal notice & lock in audit liability. Step-by-step guide, email template & Preservation Notice PDF here:

👉 https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122160509102968848&id=61579065462196

19/10/2026

🚨 WE ARE AT WAR WITH OUR OWN GOVERNMENT! 🚨

They rely on the public being apolitical and easily distracted by foreign conflicts while they quietly dismantle local democracy at home.
In her latest Substack piece, Madeleine Hunt breaks down how the exact same centralized playbook is being deployed here in the UK step by step:

https://hplibrary.substack.com/p/we-are-at-war-with-our-own-government

🎥 WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW:

Madeleine sat down with Rich on "Rich Does More" to expose the mainstream media blackouts, the political theatre, Tony Blair's devolution trap, and why independent, principled opposition terrifies the establishment:

https://youtu.be/nq38YuVS0-Q
The time for complaining is over. Party politics created this £1 Billion debt mountain and the push for unelected regional mayors—and voting in a few cycles won't stop them from auctioning off our local assets today.
Direct legal accountability is the only way forward.

👇 DOWNLOAD THE FORMAL NOTICE & SERVE YOUR COUNCIL TODAY:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/rhlapdkc57o6hm7zwhtgp/NRCA_Preservation_of_Rights_subs.pdf?rlkey=3xpb5z2isu032s1lnoc24l2zf&st=p1q876mp&dl=0

Or here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ewJvHuqanFazneydDiPTTlO9iIKHcvoq/view?usp=drivesdk

Have you taken 2 minutes to serve your formal notice yet? Reply YES or NO below! ✊⚖️

They rely on the public being apolitical and easily distracted by foreign conflicts while they quietly dismantle local democracy at home.

19/10/2026

🚨 THE PROOF IS IN PRINT: SOMERSET COUNCIL LEADER CONFIRMS REGIONAL MAYOR BID IS SUBMITTED & WAITING FOR APPROVAL! 🚨

While council leadership parades a £5.2m one-off grant in front of the media, the real story is hidden in plain sight in the Somerset County Gazette:

https://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/26638919.somerset-council-demands-devolution-deal-amid-5-2m-windfall/?fbclid=Iwb21leAVAc3VjbGNrBUBzcGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHBkb2YFc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEenZCUgtAkkRDl3s1Kdujj_rVBLUtTu2L_aAGR7y0KtN4PdvFfRTRFC2Zax6A_aem_sYDh5H43TWt8Fx7OvZExfQ

1. THE MAYORAL BID IS SUBMITTED: Council Leader Bill Revans has officially confirmed Somerset submitted a bid for a regional "Wessex Partnership" Strategic Authority—explicitly stating it could be MAYORAL and that they are "merely waiting for government to say yes".

2. THE £400M CARROT: Revans claims Somerset is "losing out on £400m a year" without a regional mayoral authority, using central government rules as an excuse to justify stripping local decision-making power away.

3. TIMED FOR DEVOLUTION: Council officers explicitly admitted that current £5.2m legacy funds are being fast-tracked over the next 2 years specifically to line up with "the government's timeline for devolution".

---

⚠️ THE BOTTOM LINE:
They broke the 2023 unitary promises, squandered £92 MILLION on failed commercial property deals, signed a £20 MILLION contract with Newton Consulting Ltd, and are now handing regional power over to an unelected Metro Mayor!

A £5.2m grant doesn't fix a £1 Billion debt mountain—it's PR glitter on a structural collapse.

Stop debating their press releases. Put statutory officers on direct, recorded legal notice!

Serving Madeleine Hunt’s formal NRCA Preservation Notice places Chief Executive Duncan Sharkey, Monitoring Officer Alyn Jones, and Section 151 Officer Lizzie Watkin on official legal record for personal and audit liability.

👇 DOWNLOAD THE FORMAL NOTICE & SERVE YOUR COUNCIL TODAY:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122160509102968848&id=61579065462196

Have you taken 2 minutes to serve your formal notice yet? Reply YES or NO below! ✊⚖️



---